Call Me Zelda (23 page)

“I wrote to Will while I searched in Europe, but he wouldn’t accept that Ben was missing. I saw him once, after the war. He visited me at my parents’ house, and cried in my arms for an hour. I never saw a man cry like that. That was the last time I ever saw him.”

We arrived back at the house as the final light left the sky, and Zelda stopped me on the porch stairs.

“Thank you for telling me everything,” she said.

I nodded, feeling a bit guilty about the large part of the story I’d left out, but sure Zelda should not know it. At least not now.

“I’ll write for you this weekend,” she said. “I’ll write to you about the mansion in Delaware where we used to live, after Scott made love to that vapid young actress and put a stake through my heart.”

Lincoln was in the driveway, right on schedule. I gathered my things and embraced Zelda, and as I pulled away from La Paix, I saw Zelda’s dark form on the front porch, a specter in a troubled house, a wilted lapel flower.

I
was startled by Lincoln’s furrowed brow. He had nodded his head and pulled away from La Paix without speaking. He was rarely serious, but I reflected that since our night at the theater he hadn’t said much at all. I tried to make small talk, but it wasn’t getting me much more than grunts and mumbles. Finally, he spoke.

“I need to talk to you, Anna.”

“Yes, sir, this sounds quite serious, sir,” I said.

“It is,” he said. “I’m worried about you at that writer’s place.”

I smiled at him from the backseat.

“You are kind to think of me,” I said, “but everything’s okay. I know I made a mistake by taking her to the ballet that night, but I sure won’t do that again.”

“That’s part of it,” he said, “but not all.”

“What do you mean?”

He rubbed his neck and turned his eyes back to the road.

“You just spend so much time there. You left your job at Hopkins. You’ve missed your parents’ house a couple of times—not that I’m judging, mind you, I’ve just never seen you do that before.”

I fixed my gaze out the window and felt my defenses rise. I didn’t appreciate Lincoln’s judgment. I needed a taxi driver, not a therapist.

“And you seem tired, Anna. Tired to your bones—”

“That’s enough,” I said.

I caught his eye in the mirror again, and his forehead was creased with worry. I turned away in my seat and didn’t look at him or speak a word for the rest of the ride. My feelings alternated between anger at his interference, guilt that I’d snapped at him, and the little nagging thought I kept swatting away that he might be right.

The taxi ride seemed to take ten times longer than usual, and a cold rain started as soon as we pulled up to my parents’ driveway. I dropped Lincoln’s fare into the front seat, jumped out of the car before he had a chance to open my door, and started up the long driveway, cursing myself for forgetting my umbrella. Lincoln was shortly at my side with his umbrella over the two of us, and I felt awful for the way I’d behaved. When I tried to apologize he put up his hand.

“Anna, I love you like a daughter, and I have a daughter, so I know all about moods and things. You’re not going to get rid of me with one tantrum.”

I was embarrassed to feel tears in my eyes, and I tried to smile at him.

“Now go see your parents and take care of yourself this weekend,” he said. “Just do me a favor: Try to leave that other life behind you to get a little rest while you’re up here.”

I nodded. “I think I can do that.”

“Good girl.”

He deposited me at the front door, kissed my head, and left.

M
om was tired and spent much of the weekend resting in bed. She said the cold weather and early dark made her feel worse than usual. I worried, not for the first time, that my father might need more help here with her. He always swatted my queries away, but I could foresee that soon the tides would turn.

How would I split my time? I had to be here when they needed me, but my job with Zelda had taken over my life. I started to obsess about why I had let it consume me. Was it because I’d been so alone and needed to feel useful? Or was it because of a more sinister issue: their fame? I hated to admit that I could let such a thing influence my attention to a patient and her family, but the idea nagged at me. I reminded myself that I’d always had a hard time separating work and life, that I’d spent nights in the hospital with patients who had needed me at Walter Reed, at the field hospital, at Phipps, and I’d certainly never before taken care of anyone famous.

Recalling Lincoln’s words about leaving my life in the city behind, however, gave me permission to stop thinking about Zelda and focus on my family and myself. The quiet of the woods was a balm, and the hours my mother spent resting gave me time to spend with my father in the barn.

Saturday afternoon he got a fire going in the stove and cut the copper tubes for his wind chimes while I wired them to cedar blocks. We wore fingerless gloves and sipped coffee while we worked, and didn’t say much of anything. My dad wasn’t one for
long speeches; he let his presence and our actions do the talking. Even as a girl, I’d learned lessons at his side: how shapeless, ugly things like metal could be pounded and soldered to make beautiful music; how it took patience to find the right tubes for the tones that would harmonize best together; how concentrating on the act of creating something with my hands could heal troubles in my heart; how the pretty things we made would hang from others’ back porches and trees and bring them some sort of release.

Zelda tried to wiggle into my thoughts, but I pushed her out. I gave my energy only to what was around me.

When I sat at the dinner table that night, I felt restored. The crisp air had cleared out my lungs, my fingertips had a pleasant soreness from the wire, and the wind from my walk by the woods had put a little color in my cheeks. My mother remarked on my improvement.

“You look so fresh and lovely,” she said. “I think being here did you good.”

“I think it did, too,” I said. “I’m sorry I’ve let some time go between visits. I’m a little caught up with the Fitzgeralds, I must confess.”

“I can see how demanding they are of your attention,” said Mom, “but you’ve always been that way. A caretaker. It’s why you became a nurse in the first place.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I said. I took a bite of the pumpkin pie my mother had made and it nearly melted on my tongue.

“Just make sure you come up for air every now and then,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to set boundaries.”

Boundaries. Dividing lines. Therapy with Zelda didn’t work that way. It was all or nothing. In or out. And I didn’t want the boundaries, truth be told. I received satisfaction from small successes with her. I felt as if I was fulfilling my purpose when I was with her, and I didn’t want to think of what would happen when
I couldn’t help her anymore: if she’d get sent away if the money ran out. I could only focus on the days in front of me and hope they stretched long into the future, where we could untangle her knots, strike the right chord, and wire her together so she’d work as intended.

SEVENTEEN

Ellerslie: 1927

A one-act play illustrating the effects of cheap Hollywood romance, and how violence breaks more than just a nose.

PROLOGUE:

The location of this house is in Delaware, but it could be any haunted old estate where people live beyond their means trying to destroy one another with lovers and parties and alcohol, and where the day moves from morning to afternoon to twilight to night and back again faster than in other places in the world.

When we meet our friends there is a party with many drunks and fancy people. Of special notice are the following characters: ACTRESS, a hollow young Hollywood sort who tries to convey innocence through wide eyes and white dresses while she’s dirty as a harlot in her panties. A washed-up WRITER who can’t stop drinking long enough to produce anything but rapturous adoration from ACTRESS. CHILD whom everyone forgets about and who wanders the rooms talking to herself. And DANCER trying to make meaning of the music in large mirrors and pale pink dance clothes.

Bootlegged records of Negro music play, while a thunderstorm rages outside that has sent the guests indoors to disturb the calm of the house and the balance of DANCER.

DANCER lifts her skirt to the applause and enthusiasm of the assembly, while ACTRESS covers her eyes and runs from the room, offended by the boldness of DANCER. CHILD looks on, trying to make sense of the scene, but before she can find it, NANNY drags her up the stairs to her room, where the ghosts of the house will scare her to hysterics all night with the storm and the party noise.